The Limit (Sebastian Vettel)

6. Ten Years On...

February 2018, Jerez, Spain

Seb pulled at his tie, loosening it slightly.  After all these years he thought he'd have got used to ties by now, but he hated them as much as he ever did.  He still didn't know how to tie them.  Thank God he had Britta, his press officer, to help him. 

As he stood looking in the mirror he thought back to that awful day exactly ten years before, almost to the minute.  He would never forget that day for as long as he lived.   Neither would he forget the day of the funeral. The day he'd first seen Lily.  

He hadn't seen her for over two months now, not since she'd walked out on him.  He didn't blame her for that, he'd behaved like a complete asshole.  He'd woken the following morning and remembered every single moment of the night before, despite how intoxicated he'd been.  He'd remembered dancing with Lily, kissing her under the mistletoe and taking her back to his room.  He remembered her sucking his dick, he remembered how desperate he'd been for her, and he remembered opening his big mouth and saying one of the worst things he could have said.   He'd called her easy.    

Since that night he'd not been able to get her out of his head.   He wanted to call her, to apologise for his behaviour, but he didn't have her number.   He'd hoped to bump into her at Maranello but he'd hadn't. He knew he'd see her today though.   Today, the world of Formula 1 was gathered in Jerez to remember the life of Michael Scott on the tenth anniversary of his death.

Lost in his thoughts Seb recalled how he had headed to the funeral with his good friend, Michael Schumacher. How he wished his friend was there right now. He missed him terribly.

There was a knock on his hotel room door. He sighed and ran a hand over his neatly trimmed beard, before leaving the mirror and heading to open the door. He opened it, nodding at the man stood there.

"You ready?" asked Jenson. Seb nodded again. He was as ready as he'd ever be. Today was going to be challenging. He tried not to think of Michael's crash too often.   When you had to drive cars fast for a living it was best not to dwell on things that could go wrong. The best thing to do was to mourn, see if anything could be learned from what had happened, and then move on.    That's what had happened when Jules had died a few years previously, and now in the new season the cars would have a new safety device, the halo, as part of their design.   Hopefully as a result of Jules' death countless other lives could be saved.  Nothing could be learnt from Michael's death however, it was his own body that had killed him.  

He grabbed hold of his padded black coat and slipped it on before leaving his room. Together he and Jenson made their way down to the lobby, choosing to take the stairwell instead of waiting around for the elevator.

As they crossed the lobby heading for the exit, Seb noticed several faces that he hadn't seen for a while. Giancarlo, Jarno, Mark. All were stony faced, obviously reliving that day.

The hotel was just a stones throw from the circuit so they decided to walk. It was a Monday afternoon and the gathering hadn't been well publicised but there were still a couple of dozen fans lining the street. Seb signed several autographs as he made his way towards the track. He politely declined any requests for photographs, which thankfully hadn't been many.

Arriving at the track they made their way down to Turn 6. Seb began to feel nauseous, continuous memories of that day replaying in his mind, his engineer shouting at him to box, the twisted remains of the Force India, the long wait resulting in the news none of them had wanted to hear.

His attention was drawn to a group of women gathered over by the barrier. He recognised Angela Scott immediately. The years hadn't been kind to her. Back then she'd looked a good ten years younger than she actually was. Now, aged in her early fifties, she looked ten years older.